


to be held, and held together

by walkingsaladshooter



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (they probs don't realize praise kink & body worship are their kinks but they ARE), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Worship, Cherishing Each Other, Devotion, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Force Bond (Star Wars), Foreplay, Gentle Sex, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Kissing, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Post-TRoS, Praise Kink, Spoiling Each Other (Sexually), The softest softest sex, Vaginal Fingering, Virgin Ben Solo, Virgin Rey (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:13:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22823098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingsaladshooter/pseuds/walkingsaladshooter
Summary: “I want to stay here with you,” he murmurs. “In this bed. And I want to make you feel nothing but good things.”--After the war, Ben and Rey travel to Naboo for a vacation. The first thing Ben wants to do is spoil Rey as best he can.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 43
Kudos: 399
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	to be held, and held together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lightningpelt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightningpelt/gifts).



> For Lightningpelt.
> 
> Based on the prompt: “NSFW; Give me soft things. Give me Ben deciding to spoil the everloving heck out of Rey in every way possible, and please give me Rey turning the tables. Just please let them both be on the receiving end of more love and adoration and good things than they can physically handle.”
> 
> This may be the softest smut I’ve ever written, and I love writing soft smut. Sorry for the eleventh-hour upload before reveals, but I didn’t want to let this prompt pass me by. I hope you enjoy!

It isn’t easy getting to Naboo. So much happens first, and through all of it, Rey is too far away. They keep Ben in private quarters (“It’s not a cell,” Poe Dameron insists at Rey’s bristling, even though an armed guard stands outside the entire time; which is ridiculous because if Ben wanted to he could easily make said guard leave), and they keep Rey busy with whatever it is the Resistance is doing to mop up the mess of Exegol.  
  
(“I can help,” Ben says for the hundredth time. “I know strategy.”  
  
“You know battle,” Dameron says flatly. “Not strategy. Just give us the intel and we’ll make the plans.”)  
  
So Ben give them intel—names, fleets, bases, plans as they were when he left, though they may no longer hold true—and they go off and keep Rey busy and far from him. They can still feel each other. They can always feel each other, now. But it’s not quite the same as seeing her, hearing her voice. The only time they actually see each other is at meals. Rey sits across from him and holds his hand, eating as slowly as she can to make it last, never looking away from him the whole time.  
  
Sometimes she looks like she might cry. Ben feels her in his heart, in that place where the two of them are irrevocably joined; he feels that the tears waver between happiness and longing, her emotions as blurred and changeable as water.  
  
“Do you want to stay here?” he asks her one morning over breakfast, when her grip on his hand is especially desperate.  
  
Guilt and affection and longing and resolution all shift through her. “I’m not a leader,” she says. “I want to help my friends. The galaxy. But I can’t plan the new path for them.”  
  
“What do you want?” he asks her, voice low.  
  
He hears her throat constrict with a sharp inhale. “To be with you.” Her fingers soften against his, warm and sure. “The second they let you go, I want you to take me somewhere green, and I want us to stay there as long as we want.”  
  
Ben brushes his thumb across her wrist. “I promise.”  
  
It still takes what feels like forever, and many arguments with the generals, and seemingly endless conversations Rey has with her friends, assuring them she’s not running away, of course she’ll be back, eventually, she just needs time— And Ben can feel her flickers of agitation, of fondness, all woven together with a thrumming need that’s growing harder and harder to ignore. A need that thrums in Ben’s own chest.  
  
Finally, finally, finally, she shows up at his door one morning, her face glowing with simple joy.  
  
“Let’s go.”  
  
Ben takes her hand.  
  
They take a small transport and they fly. Ben likes piloting for her. She’s a very good pilot in her own right, but he’s an excellent pilot, and he knows it. Something like pride washes through him when he banks a hairpoint turn, just because he can, and Rey laughs. “Show-off.”  
  
A smirk tugs the corner of his mouth. “You like it.”  
  
Her answering grin is his favorite sight in the galaxy.  
  
And then they make it. They land, they dock the ship, they rent a speeder and race across the countryside with Rey’s arms twined around his waist, her thighs bracketing his hips, her chin on his shoulder. Rolling green hills, waterfalls and lakes, flowers upon flowers upon flowers, a sky so blue and clear it makes his heart ache doming above them. The air is warm and soft and everything he wants to give her.  
  
They have secured a cottage nestled in a valley at the edge of one of the smaller lakes. There are a handful of other cottages along the shore, and he can see some other vacationers rowing out on the lake, but it doesn’t matter. Nobody will know them out here. Nobody will bother them.  
  
They’ve climbed off the speeder, but Rey’s arms are around his waist again, her cheek pressed against his chest. “I can’t believe it,” she whispers, staring out across the lake to the green hills on the other side. “I can’t believe there’s anywhere this beautiful.”  
  
Holding her close to him, Ben rests his chin on top of her head. “I’ll show you every green place. Anything you want.” Tentatively, he shifts to press a kiss against her hair.  
  
Rey tips up her chin, beaming at him. “Can we see inside?”  
  
It’s simple and clean and bright. A small kitchen (with an actual stove), a ‘fresher, and a sitting area on the ground floor. Up a ladder is the dome-ceilinged loft, taken up almost entirely by a bed piled in fluffy pillows and blankets.  
  
Ben feels his ears start to burn as Rey flops down onto the bed. He had assumed—likely he shouldn’t have assumed, likely he should have asked—  
  
“Ben.” Her voice shakes him from the spiral of his thoughts. She smiles and pats the blanket next to her.  
  
He swallows. He runs a hand through his hair. He goes and sits next to her, folding his long legs up on the mattress.  
  
Rey opens her hand, and he takes it in his, lacing their fingers together. She leans her head on his shoulder and hums softly. “We can just sit here if we want,” she muses. “As long as we want.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“We can do anything we want.”  
  
“Mm.” He turns his head to press a kiss to her temple. She lifts their joined hands to kiss his knuckles.  
  
“Ben.” Her lips brush his skin. “What do you want to do?”  
  
He pulls in a shaky breath. “That depends.”  
  
“On?”  
  
“Whether we go out or stay in.”  
  
And Rey lowers their hands and turns her face to him, her nose brushing against his. “Let’s stay in.” Her lips are already nearly touching his. It doesn’t take much for her to close the distance.  
  
Her kiss is soft and sweet, and Ben reaches up his free hand to cradle her face and angle her better for him to kiss her back properly. Something surges in his heart, a feeling half his and half her own, a warmth and ease and relief. He shifts to kiss the corner of her mouth, then across her freckled cheek, then on her neck right below her ear.  
  
Rey hisses in a quick breath, her hand tightening around his. That familiar thrum of need sings between them, and so he knows it was a good gasp.  
  
“If we stay in,” he murmurs against her skin, “we still have options.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“I could cook for you.” He presses light kisses down the column of her throat; her free hand comes up to wind in his hair.  
  
“You can cook?”  
  
“I’m not sure. We could find out.” She laughs, a buzzing under his lips, and he curiously presses the tip of his tongue to her pulse there. Rey makes a quiet _oh_ sound and rubs her fingertips against his scalp, so he does it again. “We could unpack.”  
  
“We barely brought anything with us.”  
  
“True.” Now he kisses back up her neck, stopping to whisper in her ear, “We could take a nap.”  
  
“Ben Solo.” Rey pulls back, holding his face in her hands now and gazing at him with flushed cheeks, darkened eyes, an intensity he’s not used to seeing on her in such a quiet context. “Tell me what you really want to do.”  
  
He can’t help but smile at the sight of her, the twang of irritation wound up in the desire. So he kisses her again, longer, deeper, until she’s melting against him, sighing into his mouth, shifting her weight on the bed so she can press closer to him.  
  
“I want to stay here with you,” he murmurs. “In this bed. And I want to make you feel nothing but good things.”  
  
“You do,” Rey whispers, hands fumbling on his shoulders as she starts trying to climb onto his lap.  
  
With ease, Ben wraps his hands around her waist and sets her back down on the bed. “I don’t,” he says. “Or at least I haven’t.” This time he kisses her forehead, and Rey’s thumbs brush the sides of his neck. “I’ve made you cry.”  
  
“It’s all right now. Everything’s all right now, Ben.”  
  
“I need to give you something better.” He holds her waist, his thumbs brushing up and down her stomach to match hers alongside his neck, and Rey shivers. “That’s all I want, Rey. To make you feel—” His throat goes thick and tight; he blinks hard and swallows. “To make you feel as good as you deserve. As cherished. As loved.”  
  
For a long moment, she just stares at him, eyes bright, lips softly parted. Then she pulls on his neck as she sprawls backwards onto the bed, dragging him down with her, startling a rusty laugh from him. Rey squirms and grins and lifts her head to give him a peck of a kiss. “Good,” is all she says, and Ben smiles against her lips as he kisses her back.  
  
And for a little while, he lets himself get lost in this. His body settles on top of hers, her arms around him and her fingers stroking his hair. The feeling of her beneath him, lithe and warm and arching up into him, rushes to his head, makes him dizzy. Though that could possibly be because his blood is rushing elsewhere. But then Rey starts making these soft sounds, and she rocks her hips up against him, then blushes furiously when she realizes what she’s done.  
  
Ben holds her face in his hands and kisses her lightly, once more. “I’m afraid my knowledge here is largely academic.” He presses the pad of one thumb gently against the corner of her mouth; she chases it, turning her head to kiss his thumb and then the palm of his hand, which makes his heart melt so thoroughly he’s quite certain it’s doomed to puddle form for the rest of his days. “Tell me how it feels? If you want something different?” She nods, and Ben shifts down.  
  
The hem of her shirt is trapped under both her vest and her belt, which is really entirely too many obstructions. So he unfastens her belt and slips it off, shoving it to the side of the bed and ignoring the light thump when it slides off and hits the floor. The vest he simply pushes gently to the sides, and then he spreads his hand over her middle and pushes up her shirt, exposing the skin beneath.  
  
He sees the tremor that runs through her muscles. “Is the air too cold?” he murmurs, bending his head to lay soft kisses against her stomach.  
  
When he glances up, Rey is biting her lip, her cheeks flushed. “N-no.”  
  
“Do you like this?”  
  
 _“Yes.”_ It’s quite breathless, her affirmation, and as he kisses her again, she lays her hand on top of his, squeezing his fingers as she shivers again.  
  
For a moment, Ben goes still. His gaze lands on his hand, spanning nearly the entire width of her stomach, and her smaller hand on top of it, and for a brief moment his mind is not here in the lake country of Naboo with Rey’s skin warm and alive beneath his lips. For a moment he is somewhere colder, and she is cold.  
  
His heart squeezes fiercely. He knows the moment Rey catches what he’s feeling, knows by the way she reaches out to him through their bond, something so sweet and firm at the same time, like a hand grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at her. _Be with me. Here. Now. Whole._  
  
And he is. She is. They are.  
  
So Ben settle himself back in the present, the warm, sweet, gentle present, and kisses further up her stomach. With each kiss he pushes her shirt up and up, until he kisses the soft swell of the underside of one of her breasts.  
  
Rey sighs in a high-pitched way and arches her back, playing with his hair. “That feels so nice.”  
  
With his lips against her breastbone, his hands caging her sides, he murmurs, “Good. You deserve every nice feeling.” He slides his hands up under her vest, opening it down her shoulders. Rey wriggles, pulling her arms free, laughing softly when her elbow hits his shoulder. Then she grabs the hem of her shirt herself and tugs it off over her head and drops it somewhere to the side.  
  
Ben’s breath catches in his throat.  
  
Her breasts are small and sweet and lovely, her skin is golden, the top of her chest freckled where the sun has found it. He runs his hands over the planes of her body, transfixed, and watches in fascination as her chest flushes.  
  
When he looks up at her, her pupils are wide, her lip between her teeth again.  
  
“You’re beautiful,” he tells her, and her cheeks go pinker. Ben lowers his head, his hair brushing her collarbone, and presses a kiss to the top of one breast. “Gorgeous.” Rey whines softly when he lets his kisses drift down around the swell of her breast; her breath hitches and her fingers tighten in his hair when he presses his tongue to the unbelievably softer skin of her nipple, feels it tighten and pebble up under his touch.  
  
“I like how you taste.” Another open-mouthed kiss to the side of her breast. Another gentle, indistinct murmur from Rey. “You feel…”  
  
Her blood thrums beneath her skin, her heartbeat strong. Her chest rises and falls beneath him with each full breath. She’s whole and here, sweet and pliant against him.  
  
“You feel incredible.”  
  
Rey grabs his head in her hands and hauls him up to kiss him fiercely. Ben takes it, takes anything she’s willing to give him, and as she kisses him one of his hands finds her breast and covers it, squeezing lightly.  
  
She makes a small squeak against his mouth. “Gently,” she mumbles. So Ben softens his touch, cupping her with gentle pressure, and she makes a happy hum instead. “That feels so nice.”  
  
Nice isn’t good enough. Not for her.  
  
So Ben tilts his head, trailing kisses along her jawline. He presses them under her ear and down the side of her neck, feeling her shiver when he lingers over her pulse. He scatters them over her shoulder, trying to kiss every freckle. When he feels her fingers on the side of her face, he reaches up and catches her hand and brings to his lips, kissing the tip of each finger and looking up at Rey to see her flushed and smiling.  
  
“I love your hands.” He kisses her palm, the way she did to him. He lets his lips linger there.  
  
Rey furrows her brow, though she’s still smiling. “They’re just hands, Ben.”  
  
“No.” He kisses her palm again, then gently turns her hand over and kisses the back of it, drops a kiss on each knuckle between his sentences. “They’re as wonderful as the rest of you. They repair things. They save things.”  
  
“Salvaging,” Rey says, nearly whispering. “Scavenging.”  
  
“More than that.” Deep in his chest, deep in the truth of him, he can feel her, feel the way her heart is expanding with the things he’s making her feel. _Seen. Wanted. Loved._ It’s everything he wants to give her, and he won’t stop now. Ben presses a kiss to the heel of her hand, just above her wrist. “These are hands that make things better.” He doesn’t look away from her for even a second when he says, his lips against her skin, “These are the hands that healed me.”  
  
Her eyes widen, brighten, and she blinks as they grow damp. “Ben…”  
  
And he catches her other hand, brings it up and holds them together, kissing the palms of both with a slow, quiet reverence. “They healed me,” he murmurs. “They saved me. They chose me.”  
  
A pinprick shoots through their bond, and he hears her shudder a breath. So he holds one hand against his chest and releases the other so he can reach down and cup her cheek, running his thumb over its planes to brush away the tear that squeezes out of her eye. And he smiles at her, a small, careful thing.  
  
Rey’s returning smile is so brilliant it puts the stars to shame.  
  
Turning his attention back to her body, Ben lifts the hand he’s holding and kisses her wrist, flicking his tongue briefly against it like he did against her throat. “Mm.” Rey wiggles under him, her eyelids fluttering as her smile softens in easy pleasure.  
  
Ben takes his time, kissing down the soft skin of the underside of her forearm, watching and listening as Rey sighs and melts into the mattress. When he gets halfway, he quirks an eyebrow, sets his mouth flush to the tender inner elbow, and blows a raspberry for all he’s worth.  
  
The way she _shrieks,_ then laughs so bright and clear, wriggling underneath him, howling _“Be—ennn!”_ and trying to get away, makes his heart leap and a grin break out on his face that’s feeling slowly more and more familiar, the longer he’s with her. “Not a chance,” he tells her, her thighs and knees bracketing in her hips as she thrashes. “I’ve got more of you to kiss.”  
  
“No _tickling._ ” The seriousness she’s trying to pull off is undercut by her smile and the giggles still escaping her.  
  
“Pity,” Ben sighs. But he relents, and he kisses his way back up her upper arm until he’s bent down at her shoulder again, and by then Rey has softened and is stroking her fingers through his hair.  
  
“Take off your shirt?” she murmurs. “I want to feel you.”  
  
“Anything you want, sweetheart.” He kisses her mouth, once, lightly, then sits up and tugs off his sweater.  
  
How do her eyes both darken and brighten when she stares at his chest? He settles over her again so they’re chest to chest and kisses her, hard, because the feeling of her breasts pressed against his bare skin is making his blood heat. “Yeah, this was a good idea,” he mumbles. Rey laughs, running her hands up and down his sides. The more he kisses her, the closer she tries to pull him: drawing her knees up to hook her feet behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding him tight to her, rocking her hips up to meet his where they’re settled between her thighs.  
  
Ben hisses in a breath. “Rey—”  
  
She’s not bashful, this time. “ _Please,_ Ben.”  
  
Shifting his weight to the side, he turns his body a little, splaying one hand over her stomach. Rey tries to pull him back onto her until he trails his hand down, his fingertips brushing just underneath the waistband of her pants.  
  
Then she’s the one to pull back, breathing hard. She looks up at him with eyes glittering and lips kiss-bruised. “Please,” she whispers.  
  
Ben nods and bends down his head. “Tell me how,” he whispers in return, and kisses her as he slides his fingers fully underneath her waistband.  
  
His heart thunders when his fingertips brush her coarse, curling hair. It feels a lot like his. “Keep going,” she urges, and so he does, his hand dipping further into the heat between her legs until he touches the softest, warmest, slickest—  
  
“Stars, Rey.” His hips cant against hers unthinkingly as he cups his hand around her. “You’re so wet.”  
  
“No kidding.” She shivers when he draws a finger up the seam of her. “At the top,” she manages through the hot kisses she’s leaving against his neck. “There’s—a little bud. Touch it. Gently, but— _ah!_ ”  
  
The way she arches against him when he touches her there is heady. So he presses again, and she whines, grabbing his chin so she can pull him back to kiss her. Between kisses she breathes fleeting instructions; Ben dips his fingers lower to draw up more of her wetness, then circles her bud with a gentle, firm pressure that makes her give up on kissing him and press her face into his neck instead.  
  
“You deserve this,” Ben rasps. His voice has gone hoarse, his blood singing and his cock hard in his pants, against Rey’s hip, and it takes so much control to keep the pace of his fingers gentle and slow the way she asks him to, the way he wants to, really, this time, to make her feel endlessly cherished. “Every good feeling. Everything I can possibly give you. You deserve it all and more, love.”  
  
Rey lets out a small cry, clinging to his neck, and he feels a sparking, or a sparkling, or a rushing in the bond between them. She’s overflowing with feeling, squirming against him. “It’s all right,” he murmurs into her hair, never stopping the circling of his fingers for a second. “Get there, sweetheart. I have you.”  
  
And her fingers dig into his back and she bites down on his shoulder and she shudders and goes all tight and the way she feels, the way she feels in the Force is an overwhelming rush of _yes_ and _good_ and _safe warm pleasured loved Ben Ben Ben._  
  
He sinks deeper into her, letting what she’s feeling thrum through him. So he feels the moment the press of his fingers would feel better if he slowed them, so he does. Rey shudders and kisses him, all tongue and laziness, as a few more deep, warm waves of pleasure wash over her, like low thrumming aftershocks. And Ben feels the moment the sensation is almost about to tip into _too much too sensitive,_ so he draws his hand back up out of her pants.  
  
“That was… mm.” Rey snuggles up against him, skin to skin, and smiles against his neck. “Thank you, Ben.”  
  
He closes his eyes and holds her. His cock is hard between their stomachs, but he takes slow breaths and does his best to ignore it for now. ‘Are you going to thank me every time I make you come?”  
  
“If it’s always that delicious, then absolutely.”  
  
He smiles and strokes her hair.  
  
The angle of the sun has shifted since they came upstairs together. A slant of golden light falls over Rey’s shoulder, the slope of her side dipping and rising to her hip, as Ben runs his hand back and forth over that path. All the freckles on her shoulder are visible, and he kisses her shoulder, again, slowly and softly. Rey makes another happy murmur and snuggles even closer.  
  
“We should take off our pants,” she says.  
  
Ben’s heart stutters. “Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.” Where her head is tucked under his chin, he feels a nip at his collarbone. “I want to see you.”  
  
He pulls her tighter against him. “Just see me?”  
  
Even though her face is hidden against his chest, he knows she’s rolling her eyes. “And touch you. Stop teasing.” But there’s too much affection in her voice for him to take the request entirely seriously.  
  
So they shift away from each other—he’s loathe to let her out of his arms, but just enough—and tug down their pants. Ben kicks his fitfully off the end of the bed because the second he sees the creases of Rey’s hips, her thighs, he needs to touch her. Needs to. She laughs in surprise as he all but tackles her, taking hold of her hips and pressing his face against the waistband of her underwear, breathing in deeply. “What are you doing?” she asks, stroking his hair.  
  
“You smell incredible. How does every single part of you smell so incredible?” If he peeked up at her, he knows she’d be blushing—because he knows her, and because he can feel her rush of _pleased bashful cherished_ bubble up in the back of his own mind—but he doesn’t peek up. He’s very, very interested in the way the swell of her hip bone dips down to the crease of her thigh and then gently rises again in the soft span between her belly button and the top of her hair.  
  
“I’m going to pull these off,” he murmurs, hooking his fingers in the waistband. “And I’m going to give you another one.”  
  
Now he does look up, resting his chin on her pubic bone. Rey is biting her lip, still petting his hair, brushing it back behind his ears. “I want to touch you too, you know.”  
  
“I know. And believe me, love, I very, very much want you to.” He kisses her just above her waistband, not breaking eye contact, and she shivers. “But I’m also going to spoil you.”  
  
Her smile is everything he’s ever wanted. He returns it, then pulls down her underwear.  
  
She’s beautiful. She’s so, so soft here, where the sun and wind have seldom if ever touched her skin. He bows his head and breathes in the scent of her, musky and sweet, not sugar-sweet but earthy and intoxicating. When he kisses her inner thigh, she jerks, her fingers tightening in his hair. “Oh.” Her hand softens, rubbing at his head. “More of that. Please.”  
  
And Ben obliges. He kisses across both of her thighs, traces the lines of her hip bones with his tongue, slides his hands underneath her to cup her ass. With two fingers, he parts her folds again and finds her warm and wet and ready.  
  
When he works one finger into her, he glances up at her, his mouth still pressed to the crease of her thigh. Rey’s eyes have fluttered shut, her lips parted, her head back on the pillow.  
  
Carefully, Ben turns his head and slips his tongue into the warmth of her, licking up to her clit.  
  
 _That_ makes her jolt. The shudder when he first kissed her thigh was nothing in comparison. “Oh my god,” she moans, and the sound of it goes straight to his cock, coiling hot tension in his belly. “Do that again.”  
  
“Academic,” he reminds her, gently, as he experimentally slides his finger out, then back in, and licks at her again.  
  
She hisses in a breath. “Me too. _Fuck—_ ” The curse is rough in her voice and makes something very instinctual in him go hungry for more of it, more of those sounds. “Keep doing that. And—ahh—your finger, try—try—” Her chest heaving, she gives up on words and holds up her own hand, crooking her finger to show him.  
  
Again, Ben obliges. Remembering the way she liked it when he touched her before, he moves his tongue in firm, gentle circles over that sensitive bud and tries to curl his finger inside her at the same time.  
  
Whatever Rey tries to say this time is lost in a garbled, panting mess, but the way her fingers tighten in his hair again is all the encouragement he needs.  
  
He pays attention to her reactions, both her breathing and words and movements as well as the way she surges against him in their bond, unable to hold back even if she wanted to, raw and shimmering and overcome. Wiggling his finger sideways doesn’t do much for her, so he resumes the curling motion; when she’s so wet around his finger he can hear it, he works in a second finger.  
She’s so tight and hot around him and the way she moans at the added pressure and fullness makes him grind his hips against the bed unthinkingly.  
  
And the way she tastes. The way she feels under his tongue. Stars, it’s everything, fucking everything— He can’t stop and tell her that, or could but doesn’t want to pull away for a moment, so he lets his own floodgates open, lets her feel his heart.  
  
You feel like home.  
  
You taste like mine.  
  
I would do this forever, if it made you happy.  
  
I would do any and all things to make you feel happy, loved, cherished, and safe.  
  
“Ben. _Ben._ ” Rey’s hips buck up against him, knocking him in the nose, but he only buries deeper in her, fingers and tongue and lips and he moans against her because this, now _this_ is everything he wanted and everything she deserves.  
  
When he wraps his lips around her clit, she cries out. “That, that, don’t stop, _please_ don’t stop—”  
  
So he doesn’t. He works his fingers inside her and his lips and tongue against her, pulling her higher and higher until he feels her break over him in a wave, like sunlight sparkling on water; she’s gone silent and trembling and her hands tug at his hair for something to hold on to, she’s radiant as any sun and pulsing through him, heart mind spirit body, everything is warm and good and there’s no room, not a crack, for anything bad.  
  
That’s all he wants for her. Even for a moment.  
  
When she spirals back down and he can bear to pull away from her, Ben shifts back up over her and kisses her, slow and deep and sweet. He can’t keep the hunger out of it—his cock is painfully hard at this point—but still he keeps it slow. Rey winds her arms around his neck and kisses him back like honey.  
  
“I want to,” she murmurs against his mouth.  
  
“Mm?”  
  
One of her lithe hands works between their bodies. Her fingers brush the head of his cock and he gasps, jerking his hips back. “This,” Rey says, and a pleased glint comes into her eyes. “I want to touch you. I want to make you feel good, too.”  
  
Ben groans and leaves a trail of warm, open-mouthed kisses along her throat. “I can’t tell you no.”  
  
“Especially not when it means you get to get off too, right?”  
  
He nips at her collarbone for her sass, like she did to him earlier, and she giggles and ruffles his hair. “Come on. Lie down. Let me make you feel good.”  
  
Obliging, Ben rolls off her and onto his back. Rey wastes no time scrambling on top of him, pressing her hips down against his, and dragging her tongue up along the hollow of his throat.  
  
“ _Fuck._ ” He grabs her ass, pressing his fingers in hard. “Rey, where’d you learn—”  
  
“Academic, remember?” Her lips ghost over his chest. “I just… want to do things to you. Touch you. Taste you. Learn what you like.” She grinds her hips down again and Ben moans. He feels her grin against his skin. “More of those, please. Those sounds.”  
  
“You’re a monster,” he says, affectionately, unthinking.  
  
Rey gives him a peck on the lips. “I know.” And, smiling, she begins working her way down his body.  
  
The world has already fallen away, but everything grows even brighter and more centered as Rey’s kisses and curious, playful touches scatter across his chest, his shoulders, down his stomach. It feels so much better than he could have imagined. And when she peeks up at him, her hair falling in her face and her eyes full of light and her smile wide, he thinks it’s all right if he doesn’t deserve this after all he’s done because nobody could possibly deserve something, someone, as wonderful as this, and as her.  
  
“Shh.” Rey kisses his lower belly, right above the waistband of his underwear, and Ben bites back a whine. “You deserve all of this and more, Ben.” She hooks her fingers into his underwear and he vaguely thinks she’s mirroring what he did to her, following his tentative lead. She’s a quick study, his girl. “Yes I am,” she murmurs. “To both.”  
  
Ben furrows his brow. “I’m projecting,” he says.  
  
“Not even. It’s just like…” She pauses, leaning her cheek against his thigh. “Like you’re just not trying to keep up your walls. So everything flows out easily.”  
  
He reaches down and brushes her hair out of her face. “There’s too much,” he tells her. “To put it in words.”  
  
And her answering smile is so sweet, so sweet and genuine and loving and whole that it makes his heart absolutely soar. “Then don’t worry about words. Just let me feel you.” And she pulls off his underwear.  
  
He sees her eyes flash surprised for a brief moment at the sight of his cock, feels the little thrill of _will that even fit_ that rolls off her, which gives him a sophomoric sort of swell of pride. But Rey is nothing if not eager to tackle challenges. So she doesn’t hesitate before reaching out and wrapping her hand around him.  
  
The pressure of her fingers makes Ben squeeze shut his eyes and breathe as slowly as he can. A quiet curse hisses out between his teeth.  
  
“Show me how?” she asks, unbelievably sweetly.  
  
Ben opens his eyes, meets her gaze. He might drown in those hazel eyes, the warmth and love and curiosity in them. He reaches down and closes his hand gently over hers, pressing her fingers with just the right amount of pressure, and slowly moves her hand up and down his cock in even strokes.  
  
He’s not going to last long, not like this, not after feeling her twice and wanting this for so long. But he’ll fight to last. By the fucking stars he’ll fight to last. He wants every second of this he can get.  
  
Letting his hand fall away, he bites his lip as Rey begins to work him on her own.  
  
She strokes him evenly for a little while, murmuring soft, sweet things to him. “I love how you feel,” she says. “I love how you make me feel. I love the sounds you’re making—” soft, whining groans, too high-pitched in his own ears but he can feel she really does love them “—and the way you look right now.” He’s leaking precum steadily, tugging at the sheets to keep himself together, and Rey swipes her thumb over the head of his cock.  
  
His hips buck and he lets out a hoarse “ _Fuck—_ ”  
  
Rey grins. “You like that spot.” She runs her thumb around the head and Ben sees starlines.  
  
“Gently,” he manages to gasp.  
  
When he opens his eyes, it’s just in time to see Rey bend down and actually kiss the head of his cock.  
  
It takes every shred of self-control he’s ever had in his life not to immediately come all over her face.  
  
“Oh.” Rey’s eyebrows raise, and she flattens her tongue against him, licking a broader path, and Ben whimpers, his skin is sparking and his blood is rushing and the sight, the feeling of her licking him is— “I like how you taste,” she says, and without warning she lowers her head and takes him into her mouth.  
  
And everything is different. Everything is past words. He is borne up on a wave of her making, he is lost in the feeling of her mouth and tongue so warm and soft and wet around him. Her movements are slower, less certain than her hand had been, but he couldn’t care less when she hums with enjoyment and he feels it in every inch of him.  
  
Someone, somewhere, has forgiven him, for him to be allowed to feel this with her.  
  
Shh, Rey tells him. You are good. You are so good. You are good and warm and strong and kind and full of love. You deserve love. You deserve safety. You deserve pleasure.  
  
He’s crying, he realizes, when she sucks at him and he comes into her mouth.  
  
She swallows some of it down. She coughs a little and some ends up on her cheek, some spurting and dribbling down onto Ben’s own skin. But through it all her hand stays around him. Through it all he feels from her in their bond a constant wave of _yes_ and _thank you_ and _I love you_ , of _here whole safe sound beautiful beautiful you are so beautiful._  
  
His ears are ringing, his eyes fallen shut. His chest heaves. It takes a long moment before he realizes Rey is draping herself on top of him again and dropping sweet kisses onto his lips, peppering them across his cheeks, on his nose, over his closed eyelids. Her hands rest on his shoulders, her fingers softly stroking his skin.  
  
He used to have a scar, right there where her thumb is brushing back and forth. He doesn’t anymore. She healed it.  
  
Ben opens his eyes and sees her smiling at him. Rey leans her forehead against his, her hair falling in a curtain around them. “I liked that,” she whispers. _I love you,_ their bond sings.  
  
He wraps his arms around her, holding her close, sharing their warmth. “Me too,” he whispers back. _You are the greatest gift this universe has ever shaped._  
  
For all that has happened to him, for all he has ached and fallen apart in his life, for the first time it feels worth it, to have been taken apart so thoroughly if it meant that now, here, safe and warm and loved, his beautiful scavenger finds all his pieces and puts him back together.


End file.
